Creating an Advanced Eco-City through Collaboration Mishima City, Shizuoka Prefecture

JFS Newsletter No.47 (July 2006)
"Initiatives and Achievements of Local Governments in Japan" Article Series No.13

Giving Importance to Environmental Education

The phrase "environmental education" was introduced to Japan in 1971, one year after the National Environmental Education Act was signed into law in the United States of America. In those days, Japan had just begun institutionalizing measures to deal with emerging environmental problems such as pollution and ecosystem destruction, the dark side of rapid economic growth. Social studies at elementary and junior high schools were beginning to include the study of serious industrial pollution incidents in Minamata, Yokkaichi and other cities in their curriculums. From the 1980s, education about nature conservation came to be actively promoted in society through programs for providing first-hand experiences of nature and other field-based studies, promoted as a way of fostering human resources for nature conservation activities.

Having thus originated as education about industrial pollution incidents and conservation of natural habitats, environmental education started to spread out through Japanese society as a whole starting in the 1990s. In this era more and more people became concerned about serious, complex and diversified environmental problems such as climate change and other global environmental problems, as well as issues of waste treatment and the degradation of local natural environments. The phrase "environmental education" was used for the first time in a Japanese law in the Basic Environment Law of 1993. The Basic Environment Plan set out in the following year described environmental education as an important measure for promoting engagement, and elaborated its purposes and philosophy.

Schoolteachers are not the only ones responsible for environmental education. Various actors such as the national and local governments, corporations, citizens' groups, mass media and residents need to form partnerships and work together in a comprehensive manner. Here we introduce a local government that is promoting environmental education based on collaboration among various sectors in its bid to become an Eco-City: Mishima City of Shizuoka Prefecture.

Citizens' movement to protect springs

Mishima City, with an area of 62 square kilometers and a population of 114,000, lies at one of the gateways to Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. The city has rivers and springs everywhere, due to abundant underground flows formed by melted snow and rainwater that has filtered down through the surface layer of volcanic soil and lava flows from eruptions of Mt. Fuji. Thus Mishima has long been called a City of Water. In adjacent Shimizu Town, the Kakita River originates as a spring that generates about one million tons of water per day.

In the early 1960s, the national and prefectural governments planned the introduction of heavy industry to this area, including Mishima City, Shimizu Town, and the adjacent Numazu City. They thought of the abundant water resources as suitable for attracting the construction of a petrochemical industrial complex. Around that time, petrochemical complexes and thermal power plants were being built in coastal industrial areas across the country, including Yokkaichi City in Mie Prefecture, where horrible air pollution and health problems resulted. Seriously concerned about such problems, residents in the Mishima area initiated a massive battle against the plan.

A government investigation team provided with enormous funding and composed of industrial development proponents conducted a preliminary survey on the assumption that the complex should be built. Correspondingly, opposing residents implemented various studies. High school students, for example, produced a map of wind directions using carp-shaped streamers (called "koinobori"), a traditional decoration that Japanese families fly in May to express the hopes that their children will grow as strong and healthy as the large carp streamers appearing to swim powerfully upstream as they billow in the wind. Other residents also carried out surveys based on the direction of smoke from fireworks. In this way, local people predicted the possibility that air pollution and health hazards would result from the development and shared information through workshops and lectures in cooperation with experts and medical doctors. After only a single year of citizens' efforts, the governments' plan was finally withdrawn.

Meanwhile, Mishima City, despite being naturally blessed with water resources, was suffering from a shortage of drinking and agricultural water at the time because of excessive pumping by large-scale industrial plants located upstream of the groundwater veins. Once-abundant clean water in rivers and perennial spring water in ponds were gradually disappearing, and people's relationships with local water environments were also fading. Some residents discharged household wastewater into rivers or illegally dumped waste without hesitation.

Alarmed by these developments, eight civic groups in the city started working together in 1992 to restore waterfront environments, using the "Groundwork" approach. This approach was created in the U.K. to improve the local environment through a partnership of citizens, local government and businesses. In the U.K., specialized organizations called "Trusts" serve as coordinators to help implement such community-based programs.

After years of joint efforts by these civic groups in Mishima, a non-profit organization named "Groundwork Mishima" was established in October 1999. At present, 20 civic groups are working with the city government and businesses to restore the water environments that once characterized Mishima as the "City of Water." Their activities include river and spring-water pond restoration, and creation of habitat for fireflies.
http://www.gwmishima.jp/english/index.html

Shifting to Strategic Environmental Policies

A new mayor elected in December 1998 brought about a change towards taking a more strategic approach to the environmental policies that had been adopted with the help of eco-conscious citizens. The city identified goals and methods for promoting good environmental policy from a comprehensive and long-term perspective. The first step was the acquisition of ISO 14001 certification in July 2000. The city followed up by enacting an Environmental Basic Ordinance in November 2000, and formulated the Mishima Environmental Basic Plan in March 2002.

By the time of the first renewal of Mishima's Environmental Management System (EMS) in July 2003, this system had been introduced into all of its 72 public facilities including kindergartens, nursery schools, elementary and junior high schools. Furthermore, the city developed a simplified EMS for its own environmental certification project, and has been promoting its use in schools, households and businesses.

Concerted Efforts for Environmental Education

Convinced that love of the earth is fostered by getting close to nature and increasing environmental awareness, Mishima City provides its citizens with unique environmental education geared to their level, from preschool children to the elderly. For preschoolers, a project team consisting of nursery school and kindergarten teachers develops teaching programs and materials, such as handmade playing cards, to get children interested in the environment.

On the elementary and junior high school level, the city provides students with hands-on programs designed to encourage them to think and act independently. In the "Junior Environmental Detectives" program for fourth to sixth graders, three students each from 14 elementary schools form a group of 42 "detectives" every year, and participate in various environmental activities, such as river cleanups, native forest exploration, and tours of renewable energy facilities.

In a junior high school students' program, the city selects two students from each of seven schools as their schools' environmental leaders, and it provides them with the opportunity to visit Minamata City, Kumamoto Prefecture, one of Japan's leading environmental cities, and Yakushima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, a World Heritage Site, during summer vacation. By exchanging ideas with local people and experiencing work-study programs, students learn the importance of protecting the environment.

High school students and older people are expected to take voluntary initiatives, but the city established the Citizen's Environment College program in fiscal 2001 to provide them with a learning platform. This program offers a year-long lecture series, consisting of eight lectures, in collaboration with a local university. The aim is to foster environmental volunteers and Eco-Leaders who take the lead in promoting environmental activities.

To complete the program, attendance of at least 70 percent of the lectures and submission of a thesis are required. Those with an 80 percent or higher attendance are certified as Eco-Leaders, who play a pace-setting role in promoting environmental activities. About 360 people have participated in the program so far, and 168 were certified as Eco-Leaders. Program graduates are active in editing the local environmental magazine, "Eco-Life Mishima," and voluntarily working in forests.

In addition to these efforts, the city also provides cross-sectoral opportunities to learn and to produce environmental education materials. This initiative aims to promote collaboration between nursery schools and kindergartens, partnerships between elementary and junior high school teachers and city officials, and to integrate school curriculums with the city's environmental policies.

One achievement so far was a revised supplementary environmental textbook for Mishima elementary schools that advocates conservation of the city's environment by all citizens. Along with the revision of national educational systems and textbooks for elementary schools in 2004, this supplementary reader, initially published in fiscal 2000, was revised by an eight-member editorial board of school teachers and city officials. The revised reader is designed for use in relation to various school subjects, as well as a resource on the city's environment. Every year the city distributes 1,000 copies of this book to fourth grade students.

The city's locally-tailored initiatives and foresight in environmental measures earned it a number of awards, including Outstanding Environmental Contribution by a Local Government Prize in the 14th Grand Prize for the Global Environment Award in fiscal 2005.

Environmental education in Japan is often promoted independently by individuals and non-governmental organizations. The case of Mishima, in which environmental education is implemented systematically according to age group by a whole community, is not so common We hope Mishima's initiatives in environmental education will create a quiet but powerful flow of positive action just as snow and rain falling on Mt. Fuji in time create underground flows that burst forth as eternal springs. We also hope it can send a message about a sustainable future that can someday be shared with others around the world.

(Staff Writer Kazumi Yagi)